Cybercrime clinic says ‘stay safe but don’t panic’

Cyber security is a concern for everyone and we’re all learning to be wary of the tactics employed by keyboard criminals.

But it’s one thing to have heard about illegal activities and quite another to understand baffling terms and confusing security advice. How do you know when you’re the victim of phishing and what should you do if you’ve taken the bait? Think you’d recognise a rogue website? Unfortunately the scams are becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect.

For Safer Internet Day (February 6), a team from the University of Portsmouth has issued some practical advice on the more common and current threats facing consumers online. The message from the University’s Cybercrime Awareness Clinic is “take basic precautions but don’t panic”.

Clinic Deputy Director Dr Lisa Sugiura said: “It is important to avoid feeling overwhelmed, as we can take basic steps to protect ourselves online, and to not blame yourself if you are caught out.”

From Monday February 5, the Cybercrime Awareness Clinic is offering a free Monday afternoon advice service on how to protect yourself and your organisation from cybercrime.

Meanwhile, if you want to avoid being caught out by scams, Dr Sugiura suggests taking the following action.

Scam emails

Scam emails are fraudulent unsolicited emails that criminals – usually posing as a legitimate company – send in order to try and gain access to your computer, your information and your money. These are also referred to as phishing because fraudsters are attempting to lure unsuspecting people into opening attachments or clicking links with malicious software.

There are some things we can do to protect ourselves:

Recognise the key characteristics of email scams: impersonal greetings, poor spelling and grammar, a sense of urgency, request for personal information – legitimate companies and banks do not ask for this via email.

Check the legitimacy of the address by hovering over the from email address to see if anything is hidden – the real address might be masked behind something that seems authentic.

Don’t open strange emails – delete them straight away.

Set up a block or filter for any junk/spam mail in your email accounts.

Have the 2-step verification for your email, which requires you to not only type in your password but also a code that has been sent your phone, when logging into your email using new devices.

If you do receive a scam email, there are some points to remember:

Do not click on any links or open any attachments.

Do not reply to the email or try to contact the senders.

If you have clicked on a link in the email do not supply any information on the website that may open.

Scan your computer with an antivirus programme – some can not only detect problems but can also remove them. If your computer has lots of pop-up ads – especially when your browser isn’t open, then this indicates your computer has been compromised. You can also check your sent folder in your emails to see if there are any emails you don’t remember sending – this could indicate that your account has been hacked with a virus.

If you think you have compromised the safety of your emails, bank, personal details and computer:

change the password immediately;

contact your bank;

system restore (hopefully you have a backup of the computer);

report to Action Fraud;

call the non-emergency number 101 for advice, if you need to.

Rogue websites

Rogue websites are malicious domains, IP addresses and links that are presented as legitimate. They are often shopping sites which pose security threats for internet users. Rogue websites can collect sensitive information from users such as login IDs, password and bank details.

There are some things we can do to protect ourselves:

Recognise the key characteristics of rogue websites – offers that are too good to be true, requests to pay by bank transfer, spelling and grammatical errors on the site, no returns policy or valid contact information.

Check the padlock that comes before the website address and the address itself – strange domain names should be treated with caution, as should domains that end in .net or .org as these are rarely used for online shopping

Parents should keep up to date with websites that offer unapproved access to copyrighted content such as music, films and video games that can appeal to children. Such use can lead to copyright infringement and prosecution. Furthermore these sites are usually laden with viruses and malware, and are often used to steal email addresses and passwords.

However, some things are out of our control; for example our personal information is also stored by companies online, and this can be leaked via data breaches, without our knowledge. Nevertheless you can check to see if our email has been compromised by putting your details into www.haveibeenpwned.com, which is approved by law enforcement. If your email is on there you should change your password immediately.

If you think you have visited a rogue website:

check for any compromises and scan your computer with an antivirus programme;

contact your bank if you have provided any of your financial details;

report to Trading Standards or Action Fraud – also Google now has a form to report trademark complaints.

The Pompey Messiah explored the impact of Handel’s Messiah on the culture of Portsmouth in the early 1800s through two exhibitions, a public lecture and the recreation of a performance that was first given in Portsmouth in 1812.

Hassan Zaidi, a PhD student in the Centre for Healthcare Modelling and Informatics has won a place on the Care Innovation Challenge. Only 12 teams have been selected to participate in the programme, which aims to help address the challenges faced by the care sector in the face of a rapidly ageing population, through selecting the people and teams with the most practical and elegant ideas and solutions.

Hassan will be attending a ‘Hackathon’ this weekend in London, and will be receiving support and mentorship from industry leading experts to help develop his ideas. The best ideas will be selected to present to a panel of judges at the Cabinet Office in March, for the chance to win further funding and support to start putting ideas in to practice.

Grant will shed light on complex geologyFebruary 2

Geologist Dr Catherine Mottram, of the University of Portsmouth, has won NERC funding to join a large geological study on Canada’s Arctic west coast.

The west coast of North America has witnessed a complex series of geological events as many fragments of the earth’s crust have smashed into the continent over the last 300 million years. Faults accommodate movement during tectonic plate collision and host many gold deposits.

Catherine and colleagues will survey and collect samples from key faults of economic importance in the Whitehorse area of the Yukon Territories as part of the Geological Survey of Canada’s £115m Geomapping for Energy and Minerals programme. The scientists will need to use helicopters to reach inaccessible study sites in the mountains, where they expect to also encounter bears.

Catherine will bring back samples from Canada to the cutting-edge laboratory facilities at the University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences to date the exact timing of fault movement on these important gold-bearing faults. The results are expected to shed light on the larger history of plate movement in the Yukon from the Jurassic to recent times.

Dr Mottram’s research focuses on using geochronology, geochemistry, structural geology, petrology, and metamorphic geology to quantify the timing, rates and nature of deformation from the micron- to mountain belt- scale.